The 2 things for better cognitive load management

In their prediction for the skills we’d be needing now, by 2020, the Institute for the Future identified Cognitive Load Management in the Top 10.

It's about how we cope with all that information.

But it’s not one thing; I see Cognitive Load Management involving 2 capabilities:

🔹 To discriminate + filter information for importance, and

🔸To understand how to maximize our cognitive function (using a variety of tools and techniques.)

The answer is not about having a new app to manage, store or retrieve our own information better. We need to be able to firstly identify what’s important in the information we’re exposed to. And then we need to work with our own thinking, listening and sensemaking capabilities to handle that information better than we currently do.

I’m helping teams (via 1/2 day workshops) and individuals (via 1:1 skills sessions online) to build skill and change the way they cope with information.

It could be the best value session of your development program this year - being able to handle information better. What’s that worth to you? 

We can make information overload worse

To handle the never-ending flow of information we face, it’s useful realising that the way we currently do things could be making it harder for us to take in information with ease.

We can be so wedded to the automated and habitual way we do tasks: thinking, prioritizing, decision making, listening, note taking and learning, that we’re often blinded to the benefits and potential of newer ways.

This is why some newer ways of working are known as ... new ways of working. Of course!

I see this when I'm working with people, helping them manage their cognitive load. We’re used to our preferences (and we defend them), when we’re reading a document or listening to a presentation for example, yet we struggle with information overload and its effects. The devil you know, right?

We tolerate the inefficiency and discomfort of overload. Many people wrongly believe it would be too hard to learn a new way or the benefits wouldn't be worth the effort.

But newer ways of working are revealing better, easier and more effective ways of tackling all that information. 

 Would you be willing to try some new techniques to handle information overload? 

Lose the list

Most of us are drowning in information, slurping from the firehose, not coping. And in that, lists don’t work. Well not for making sense anyway.

Yes, ok list-lovers, lists are wonderful things, and here’s where and how they work best ... for actions.

📍To do lists

📍Shopping lists

📍Task lists

The list is the ultimate tool for managing, measuring action.

✅ Tick, tick, tick. Done, done, done.

The BIG but: a list is not the best tool for learning, making sense or connecting dots. The only way you can ‘connect the dots’ on a list is down, down the page. It’s tough then to find lateral, horizontal and reverse/upward connections of information when your eyes and mind are drawn down down down. We can find it harder to discover connections, insights and ideas in a list.

Love lists? Great, but keep them for actions, to tick off and track progress.

When it comes to capturing information, making sense, connecting the dots and managing cognitive load, leave lists out of it.

One or two takeaways - are you joking - that’s all!

The cost of attending a conference or training program is significant. There’s the registration fee, perhaps an airfare, accommodation, transfers and the cost of time away from your role, the business and your home and family life.

What’s the ROI, the return on investment you’re going for? Have you thought about it, planned for it?

Most of us are so burned out and overloaded with information that the best we get from conferences or training are:

😩A few bent business cards from networking

😩3 pages of scribbled notes from sessions

😩Swag and merch - a pen, a few brochures and a stress ball, ironically in the shape of a brain!

Back at work, we have just a couple of key points that are tough to put into practice. It’s an underrated experience that we can get so much more out of than we currently do.

'Cognitive load coping' is a skill to learn and apply to achieve a massive ROI on attending a conference or training program.

→ Do you need help with the fuzzy feeling of all that information?

Send me a message and I'll send a link to three options for learning this new way of working in our world that's overflowing with information.

Stop squirrelling information

I'm posting on information overload this week; one of my conference keynote topics, best scheduled at the start of the conference! Why? We're faced with so much information yet we haven’t evolved our abilities to process and cope with it all. We still get overloaded. Daily.

An issue is how we squirrel away information intent on working on it 'later’, reviewing it, keeping it, having it. Think... at a conference where a tonne of information is presented via PowerPoint.

How often have you got your phone out and taken a photo of a slide? We're creating a 'rework' problem though, collecting information we think we may possibly need, perhaps, maybe.

'It looks valuable; I'll capture it.' It’s inefficient and delays the sensemaking task until 'later'. That's yet another thing for 'later'!

Recent research confirms our memories and recall are NOT enhanced by these photos. We’re better off working with the information (listening, reading, thinking, writing) at the time, in the moment, even though it feels good to take photos.

We think we feel calmer capturing the moment, but we're actually adding to the big problem that is our cognitive overload. Forget the photo. Make sense in the moment.